Artur Yusupov
Number of games in database: 2,056
Years covered: 1975 to 2015
Last FIDE rating: 2573(2563 rapid, 2547 blitz)
Highest rating achieved in database: 2680Overall record: +602 -299 =1038 (57.8%)*
* Overall winning percentage = (wins+draws/2) / total games
Based on games in the database; may be incomplete.
117 exhibition games, odds games, etc. are excluded from this statistic.

Artur Mayakovich Yusupov was born on the 13th of February 1960 in Moscow, USSR.

Awarded the IM title in 1977 for his victory in the World Junior Championship and the GM title in 1980, he was a World Title Candidate thrice running, losing the semi-final round in 1986, 1989 and 1992.

Other tournament results include 2nd in the USSR Championship of 1979, 1st at Erevan 1982, 4th= at Linares 1983, 1st at Tunis 1985, 1st= at Montpellier Candidates 1985 and 3rd at Linares 1988.
In the early 1990s he disturbed burglars in his Moscow flat and was shot. Soon afterwards, Yusupov moved to Germany where he now works as a writer and trainer. He was German champion in 2005.

waustad: I ran across a player named Ekaterina Jussupow playing at the Neckar open. Does anybody know if she is his daughter? She's born in 1991 and is German. Jussupow is the German spelling of his family name.

I like music and movies. Both classical music and some pop and rock music. Bands like Dire Straits or singers like Stevie Wonder. Of the classical composers I like Mozart, Tchaikovsky and some music by Brahms. I usually bring records and videos from my travels and I have a good collection of them.

What films do you prefer?

I can give you some of my favourite films, Amadeus, Cabaret, The French Lieutenant's Woman, A Passage to India. On the hotel's video circuit they showed Gandhi, a video I also have at home.

Do you also read the books if these films are based on novels?

Yes, that helps me to study my English. I try to read as much as possible in English because two of my favourite writers are English, John Fowles and William Golding. Fowles wrote The French Lieutenant's Woman and many other books. I learned English in school, but I'm trying to improve it. I need to learn English, not only as a chess player, but also because I am very much interested in English culture.

Do you mean English culture or English and American?

English and American, yes. There are great American films as well. I am also very fond of musicals. Like My Fair Lady.

Did you see the musical Chess?

No, but I heard the soundtrack. There was some good music in it.

Do you also listen to Soviet pop music?

No, I don't, but we have singers, in Russian we call them bards, and I like their songs very much. Such singers as Bulad Okudzhava and Vladimir Vysotsky. They don't play traditional music, but simple songs accompanied on guitar, with nice lyrics that are worth listening to.

The other day a novel by the Soviet detective writer Semyonov appeared in an English translation for the first time. Do you like him?

Personally, I don't like him, but he is very famous in the Soviet Union, because of two TV-serials that were written by him. They were interesting enough to watch. Everybody knows him, he is extremely popular. But I do like detective stories. In fact I like Agatha Christie's books very much. Firstly because they were written in very simple English so that I could understand everything, secondly because I like detective stories.>

IndigoViolet: <In the early 1990's he disturbed burglars in his Moscow flat and was shot.>

Bummer.

<Gregory [Kaidanov]’s first day in America was on a visit in the summer of 1990, in the pre-Guiliani New York, when the city was notorious for a high crime rate. He and his wife were robbed twice in one day! In addition to his savings, he lost 10 years worth of chess analysis. He was devastated.>

<In 2011, Ivanchuk and his second wife were mugged by unnamed assailants the day they were set to leave from São Paulo, Brazil on a plane bound for Spain to finish the second half of the Bilbao Grand Slam Masters tournament. The muggers took the couple's money, identification, including passports, and cellular telephones, forcing Ivanchuk's wife to return to Ukraine. Ivanchuk threatened to withdraw from the tournament altogether, but his wife convinced him to continue. He had been leading in the tournament before this event, but did not play as well in the second half of the tournament.>

Other examples of chess players falling victim to violent crime are welcomed, though, not to be welcomed.

IndigoViolet: <The 1994 Olympiad in Moscow served up enough mishaps to fill an entire article. Held at the grisly Cosmos Hotel, near to the former VDNH park, the players quickly realised that any venture outside the hotel doors was liable to see them mugged, robbed or worse. The captain of the Irish team was mugged in the street by a gang of gypsy children (a common problem in Moscow at that time – I know, I was living there!) and was only saved by an old lady, who waded into them with a brolly, to such effect that one later required hospital treatment! Another team captain unwisely visited the local bank to change several thousands of dollars in foreign currency, only for the bank, “coincidentally”, to be robbed at that very moment – he had, of course, been set up by the hotel reception staff, who had directed him to the bank in the first place.

But perhaps the worst incident involved GM Alex Yermolinsky. His presence in the city as part of the US team did not go unnoticed by his ex-wife, who lived in Moscow at the time. She telephoned him and asked to see him, so an unsuspecting Yermolinsky set off across town one evening, to the apartment she had specified. When he got there, he was greeted by several thugs, hired for the purpose, who beat him up and then sent him on his way, with a demand for $10,000 in cash before the end of the tournament. A battered and bruised Yermolinsky spent the rest of the Olympiad holed up in his hotel room, too terrified to set foot outside the Cosmos.
7. Set Upon at the Seaside

Despite its decline in status over the years, Hastings is still a Mecca for many foreign players, who are pleased to visit such a legendary chess venue. However, the young Azeri GM, Farhad Tahirov, may have ended up rather regretting his appearance at the Sussex seaside town in 2006-7. He played poorly, losing a hatful of rating points. Then, halfway through the event, he was seen to be suffering with a painful skin rash on his hands, and had to visit a doctor, who diagnosed some kind of eczema-type condition.

But worst of all was what happened after the last round. Having a couple of hours to kill before the prize-giving, he decided to take a walk along the seafront. Unfortunately, he passed by a particularly dodgy pub, frequented by various skinheads and other charmers, several of whom attacked and robbed him. He lost almost £1,000 in cash, plus a mobile phone and camera, as well as ending up in hospital for treatment to his injuries.>

Penguincw: Congrats to Yusupov for his performance at the Reykjavik Open (2015). He was the 15th seed with 2573, and finished with 7.5/10, and 13th overall (near the end of a 11-way tie for 4th). He also gained 8.7 rating points.

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